Sunday, September 15, 2013

We had a very pleasant summer this year. A long sunny dry spell with a few cool breaks and some disappointing thunderstorms near the end.

One thing stood out. I had only seen three Pacific Tree Frogs in the yard for a four month period. My "go to" frogs over the front door were gone. the fountain frog was gone. Yet there were salamanders with gills in spring fountain outback. I did not see the mother Gardner snake but I did see one of her male suitors ( she had three last year) and three baby snakes.

Life is cyclic. Not every year is going to be as good as last or next for that matter. But I really wanted to work with some frogs. My “Frog Blog” blog from a few years ago was fun and I wanted to collect more photos of their diversity and more of their ability to change to match their environment. They have been hard to come by in the past few years. With the dry summer it looked like it was going to be on of those really bad years for the frogs.

My hopes were rekindled when I walked past this unassuming gas pipe at the corner of my house. He didn’t think anyone could see him. We had just had three days of heavy rain. The rivers were running and the Coho were jumping at the dam. I’ll get to them soon.

I saw him. That meant the moisture was bringing them out. That night I did a sweep of the garden but found nothing but slugs.

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A few days later we took a walk in the Nisqually Wildlife refuge. I left my camera home.

Yes, It never fails.

Along the board walk near the twin barns there was a short stretch where there were scores of frogs sunning themselves in a rare 90 degree August Sunday afternoon. The remainder walk was are rare and pleasant treat.

The next morning I started early planning on being back at the frog location when the heavy morning fog burned off. The day before we had seen the frogs at 1:30 PM so that was my target time. I maximized the morning and was on on the spot with tripod and two cameras at 1:00. I started taking pictures under a dismal grey sky. There was more fog then the day before. Over the next hour I took these photos as the sun burned through. Some were taken with a macro lens some with a 100 - 400MM. They are mixed up but will give you a glimpse of their varied packaging.

Warning, there are a lot.

Among the frogs were a few other notable creatures.

Even the portable restrooms had their own frogs.

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Which did you see first. The frog or the the snake?

Here is a short video of the snake looking for the frog. It is on my Flickr page, still trying to figure out all of this computer stuff. Frustrating.